HBS HOT BUTTERED SOUL Rose Williams, Pat Lewis and Diane Lewis. Sisters Pat and Diane formed a group and recorded solos and group records in the early 60's. They became background singers at Motown and were joined by Rose Williams in 1966.They were then simply called "The Group". In 1969, Don Davis, owner of United Sound Recording Studio (writer/producer for Stax Records) called The Group for a session which was for Isaac Hayes album Hot Buttered Soul. Pat was hired to arrange and record background vocals. When the album was released it was a hit. Isaac called The Group and asked if they wanted to travel with him. Pat gave Aretha Franklin her notice and The Group became Hot Buttered Soul. While working with Don Davis and Isaac Hayes, Hot Buttered Soul recorded background vocals for many Stax artists such as David Porter, BIlly Eckstine, Luther Ingam, Albert King, The Soul Children, Johnnie Taylor, etc. Some recordings by their own were made at Stax but have not been issued until then, unfortunately.

The next recording was made in 1971 from a long wave band broadcast, hence the bad quality. It comes from an Isaac Hayes show at the Paris, Olympia in 1971. Hot Buttered Soul - Concord Music Group Label: Stax Records Album Notes Four-song long-player ushered in the era of album-oriented soul with hits "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Walk On By." Reissue contains notes by Jim James of My Morning Jacket. Until Isaac Hayes released Hot Buttered Soul in 1969, soul music had been a singles-oriented genre. Best known as the partner of David Porter in writing such Stax hits as "Hold On! I'm Coming," "Soul Man" and "B-A-B-Y" among others, Hayes, along with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield gave the soul album a higher purpose, superseding the standard practice of assembling LPs around recent hits and filler. Even so, a four-song album whose two "singles" clocked in at 12:03 and 18:42 was unprecedented.

Stax Records' reissue of Hot Buttered Soul includes two bonus tracks (single edits of "Walk On By" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"), digital remastering, new rare photographs, and expanded liner notes by both music historian Bill Dahl and Hayes fan Jim James from the band My Morning Jacket. Hayes had recorded one previous album, Presenting Isaac Hayes in 1968, which failed to impact the charts the way his Porter-collaborated song compositions had for other Stax artists. Nonetheless, label president Al Bell green-lighted Hayes' encore long-player. Hayes went to cross-town Ardent Studios to lay down the tracks. "There was absolutely no attempt to be commercial," Marvell Thomas, the album's co-producer, told annotator Dahl. "It was just, ‘Let's do these songs. Let's do 'em like we like to do 'em.

Play whatever you want to play and have a good time doing it.' To the company, it wasn't, ‘We're going to make one of the all-time great albums and it's going to sell huge.' It was, ‘Okay, let Isaac do his thing.'" Opening with Hayes’ sexy, intimate delivery of Jimmy Webb’s "By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” clocking in at 18 and a half minutes, the album also included an extended remake of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s "Walk On By,” given definition by the spacey lead guitar of Harold Beane. "The guitar solo was not something that was planned on front end,” recalled Thomas. "It was like, ‘Well why not?’ We just stretched out and let it go. When you get in the middle of it, you just kind of ride with it until it stops.” Which it did after 12 minutes. Beane joined Thomas on piano and Hayes himself on organ, backed by the surviving members of the Bar-Kays, a band ravaged by the airplane accident that also claimed Otis Redding. Guitarist Michael Toles and drummer Willie Hall filled out the band.

Interestingly, the overdubbing of strings, horns and backing vocals was done in Detroit instead Memphis, thanks largely to the influence of producer Don Davis, who introduced Al Bell to veteran Motown arranger Johnny Allen. Another Detroiter, Dale Warren — the nephew of Berry Gordy’s ex-wife — orchestrated "Walk On By,” with a violin section populated with members of the Detroit Symphony. The original album contained two other songs as well as the hits. "One Woman,” penned by Wilson Pickett accompanist Charlie Chalmers and his future wife, Sandra Rhodes, was more of a traditional Memphis soul ballad, and was recorded also by Al Green for his Green Is Blues album. The only number on Hot Buttered Soul bearing Hayes’ writing imprimatur (a co-write by Bell) sported one of the longest song titles ever conceived: "Hyperbolicsyllabiccsesquedalymistic.” According to Thomas, "(The title) means the propensity to make a whole big deal of using words to show off your vocabulary.” The reissue contains single mixes for both "By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and "Walk On By,” extending the four-song album to six.

The new edition also contains a second set of liner notes by Jim James, lead vocalist, songwriter and producer for the Kentucky-based American rock band My Morning Jacket. Quoting James, "Everything is revealed when you open your mind to its secrets . . . [The album makes] your mind bleed . . . blurring the lines of what you thought you knew before was possible with music. It is one of those start to finish classics. And yes, damn near everything is here: Soul. Rock. Sweeping strings. Blasting horns. Full orchestral arrangements. Bare stripped down moments. Humor. Sadness. Funk . . . The recording is so God-damned 3D. It’s black. It’s white. It is universal. It is timeless. It is LOVE.” Isaac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul Album Review | Pitchfork Pop/R&B June 29 2009 A revolutionary classic of soul music, four string-drenched epics, is reissued 40 years on, in a package that includes bonus tracks.

Think about how crazy this is for a moment: Stax loses Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays to a plane crash and the rights to their back catalog (and, later, Sam & Dave) to Atlantic. Without their biggest stars and their best session group, Stax executive Al Bell takes a desperate but necessary gamble: in an attempt to build an entirely new catalog out of scratch, he schedules dozens of all-new albums and singles to be recorded and released en masse over the course of a few months. And out of all of those records, the album that puts the label back on the map is a followup to a chart dud, recorded by a songwriter/producer who wasn't typically known for singing, where three of its four songs run over nine and a half minutes. And this album sells a million copies. If it weren't for the New York Mets, Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul would be the most unlikely comeback story of 1969. Since then, the album's had an odd reevaluation process: it hit #8 on the pop charts and #1 on the R&B charts, but also hit #1 on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart-- which alarmed partisans of Miles Davis and Sly Stone alike.

After another couple of albums in its crossover-friendly, string-drenched vein, Rolling Stone declared Isaac Hayes an enemy of all that was good about soul music in the early 1970s; decades later, a generation reared on hip-hop reverse-engineered the beats on Pac's "Me Against the World" or PE's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" and discovered an original brilliance. Now, after a listen to this new reissue 40 years later, Hot Buttered Soul might still seem a little historically counterintuitive. It stood as a newer, funkier phase of Southern soul, but it hinged on a sound more opulent than the most sharp-suited Motown crossover bid. It's an exercise in melodrama and indulgence that lays it on so heavy it's impossible not to hear it as anything but the stone truth. And it's an album whose edited-down singles-- both of which went top 40 pop-- sounded more like trailers for the real thing.

(Said single edits are included here and can be safely ignored.) Yet the success of Hot Buttered Soul owed a bit to a classic crossover formula: start with an easy-listening-friendly pop staple, keep the orchestral sweetness, but layer on a shining veneer of psychedelic R&B, then stretch it out with some soul-jazz vamping and nail it down with a voice that hits like a velvet sledgehammer. Hayes demanded full creative control for this album, and his auteurism resulted in a luxurious rawness that soul artists would scramble to catch up with for years. It wasn't exactly an unprecedented sound, however, and in its own extravagant way Hot Buttered Soul might be to the end of the 60s what Ray Charles' Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was seven years previous: an album that redrew the parameters for R&B's high-class populism. It's just that it hadn't been quite this audacious before-- not to the extent of Hayes' cover of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", all 18-plus sprawling minutes of it.

Here we have a song that turns the idea of a slow build into something monumental: with a monologue he developed as a way to get apathetic club patrons to pay attention to where he was about to go, Hayes spends the first eight and a half minutes actually setting the stage for the scenario behind the song, from the wife's cavalier attitude and how the husband caught her cheating to the specific year and make of car he finally drove off for good in (a '65 Ford). It should be noted that all this time the band's been churning along with this hypnotic, minimalist swaying organ/bass/hi-hat drone that changes imperceptibly if at all; again, this is eight and a half minutes here. And when it finally does transition from Hayes' conversational murmur to the first actual sung line from the Jimmy Webb composition he's covering, it's the beginning of a metamorphosis that gradually transforms the dynamic of the song from sweet-stringed orchestration into full-fledged, brass-packed, explosively-cresting soul.

But where "Phoenix" is all slow build, the album-opening version of "Walk on By" throws almost everything it has at you right away, nailing you to the floor with those first two drumbeats. Hayes takes the restrained sorrow of Bacharach and David's composition as made famous by Dionne Warwick and chucks it out the window, replacing it with an arrangement that is the absolute antithesis of hiding the tears and sadness and grieving in private. And it's goddamned devastating at every turn: its go-for-broke opening, with those weeping strings and that stinging guitar building to their gigantic crescendo; that moment when it collapses and sinks into Michael Toles' famous slinky guitar riff, which then warps its way into psychedelic keening more Hendrix than Cropper; every hitch and moan and heart-wracked ad-lib from Hayes' deep bass voice ("you put the hurt on me, you socked it to me, mama").

The entire last half of the song's twelve minutes is an exercise in seeing just how long you can not only maintain but build on a frenzied finale, where Toles' guitar sounds like it's ripping itself apart and Hayes' Hammond organ trembles and growls and stammers like a panicking tiger. It might be the most intense six minutes of soul recorded in the confines of a studio the entire decade. The remainder of Hot Buttered Soul isn't quite as ambitiously excessive, though the other two songs still have an indelible presence. Hayes' version of Charles Chalmers' and Sandra Rhodes' "One Woman" is affecting if short-- "short" in this case meaning a hair over five minutes. As breathers go, it works wonders in proving Hayes' way with a mellow ballad could still have an emotional impact in a more confined space. And Hayes' sole songwriting credit is the linguistically convoluted masterpiece "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic," a straight-up slick-as-hell funk jam which gets a lot of mileage out of humorously-deployed latin phrases and five-dollar words ("My gastronomical stupensity is really satisfied when you're loving me").

Even if it's his only lyrical contribution, he subsequently if unintentionally caricaturizes the ornate but down-to-earth personality of the entire album: it's all self-consciously complicated, but man, the meaning's right there in front of you. And it can't help but hit you right where you feel it. The Group (3) Discography at Discogs The Group (3) Profile: In the early sixties, sisters Pat and Diane Lewis had formed a group called The Adorables , The, along with two other sisters Betty and Jackie Winston. They signed with Golden World, owned by Ed Wingate. Whilst with Golden World the girls recorded, “Deep Freeze,” “Daddy Please,” “Ooh Boy,” “Be” and “Schools All Over.” as well as recording “Romeo and Juliet” with The Reflections. In 1966,Golden World was sold to Motown. Pat Lewis, already a noted solo artist, was signed by Solid Hit Bound Records, owned by Don Davis and LaBaron Taylor. Here she recorded several singles whilst continuing to arrange and sing background vocals with sister Diane and fellow session singer Rose Williams.

The three became the main background singers for Motown as well as the "go to" session singers for many writers, producers and recording companies in the industry. Together Diane Lewis, Pat Lewis and Rose Williams were simply known as The Group. In 1969, Don Davis, owner of United Sound Recording Studio (writer/producer for Stax Records) called “The Group” for a session which was for Isaac Hayes’ album “Hot Buttered Soul”. Pat was hired to arrange and record background vocals. When the album was released it was an instant hit. Hayes called the girls and asked if they would like to go on tour with him.The Group were re-branded Hot, Buttered & Soul Members: 10 Hip-Hop Songs That Sampled Isaac Hayes By Henry Adaso Updated August 21, 2016. Chuck D once described Isaac Hayes as his " musical godfather ." The rest of us, well, we know him as a music icon--one of those visionaries that comes along once in a generation. Hayes' influence on hip-hop throughout the 80s and 90s was undeniable.

Along with redefining soul and R&B, he laid down the building blocks for great rap songs by the likes of Dr. Dre, Jay Z, and Public Enemy. From relentlessly funky hits to buttery smooth vocals, here are 10 great hip-hop songs that sampled the late great Isaac Hayes. Eugene Record | New Music And Songs | Eugene Record About Eugene Record Chicagoan Eugene Record became interested in music at an early age, first picking up the guitar. A big influence was his older sister, an accomplished pianist who practiced classical music everyday in the living room of his family home. Classic music motifs appear later in Record's original songs and record productions. At 13, he shared his visions of owning his own record company with fellow teen Gus Redmond. While attending Englewood High School, he formed the Chanteurs with Robert "Squirrel" Lester and Clarence Johnson. The group recorded a couple of singles ("You Did That to Me") for Leo Ostell's Renee Records in 1959.

Teaming with Marshall Thompson and Creadel "Red" Jones of the Desideros, the quintet became the Hi-Lites and started recording for the Daran label owned by Thompson's cousin James Shelton. In 1964, the single "I'm So Jealous" was a moderate hit and was leased to Chicago-based Mercury Records. Johnson left the group that same year and later produced the 1972 gold hit "Love Jones" by the Brighter Side of Darkness. Two more releases followed on Mercury's Blue Rock subsidiary while other singles were issued on Ja-Wes and Darin, including the Monk Higgins song "Go Go Gorilla." Their first big break came when Marshall Thompson ran into Otis Leavill while riding on a city bus. Leavill suggested that the group, now called the Chi-Lites, audition for producer Carl Davis, who had just opened his Dakar label. The Chi-Lites' first Dakar single was "Price of Love" in 1967. During that year, Davis met Nat Tarnapol, president of NY-based Brunswick Records at a DJ/record label convention.

Producing Brunswick star Jackie Wilson's comeback hits "Whispers" and "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," Davis was hired by Tarnapol to head the Chicago branch of Brunswick. Opening offices at 1449 S. Michigan, Davis signed the Chi-Lites to Brunswick in late 1968, releasing their first national chart hit, "Give It Away," which went to number ten R&B in early 1969. The double-sided follow-up was "Let Me Be the Man My Daddy Was" backed with "The Twelfth of Never." Davis hired Record to write songs for his Jalynne publishing firm in the late '60s.

Collaborating with fellow Brunswick signee Barbara Acklin, who had a 1968 Top Ten R&B/pop hit with "Love Makes a Woman," Record had a hit with Peaches and Herb's "Two Little Kids." Around this time, he and Acklin wrote the classic melancholy ballad "Have You Seen Her." While going through his catalog of songs for a new album, "Have You Seen Her" got his attention, but he deep sixed the idea of recording it because it was about five minutes long, which was well over the standard length of a three-minute 45 single record. With the success of Stax artist Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul album (with its ten-minute songs), Davis decided to include it on the group's (For God's Sake) Give More Power to The People LP. Recognizing a hit, Baltimore combo Frankie and the Spindles and seven other acts rush-released cover versions of "Have You Seen Her." Soul music radio stations and other stations broke the three-minute barrier and played the long album version of the tune.

Brunswick released a single version that first went gold, holding the number one R&B spot for two weeks and hitting number three pop in 1971, giving the Chi-Lites their first pop hit. The hickory-flavored harmonica of Cy Touff rolled up into a healthy heaping of Chicago soul was responsible for giving the Chi-Lites their most successful single to date. Producer Carl Davis picked "Oh Girl" out of a seven-song tape of Eugene Record's original tunes. On the original recording session was Record on guitar and bass, drummer Quinton Joseph, pianist Tom-Tom Washington, Touff, and engineer Bruce Swedien, who went on to work with Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, and others. Though a good portion of Brunswick's Chicago artists were recorded at Murray Allen's Universal Recording Studios, the Chi-Lites were engineered by Swedien at Brunswick's Chicago branch. A March 1972 appearance on Flip Wilson's top-rated NBC show was the springboard for the song, which went gold, hitting number one on the pop charts on May 27, 1972, and staying at number one R&B for two weeks.

More hits followed, and "Stoned..." and "There Will Never..." were Record/Acklin compositions. Record wrote and produced hits for Jackie Wilson ("You Got Me Walking," "Don't Burn No Bridges" by Jackie Wilson and the Chi-Lites) and other Brunswick signees. The songwriter wrote "Raindrops" -- not the 1961 Dee Clark hit -- for Barbara Acklin, which was her only post-Brunswick. During the early '70s, Record recorded demos for his songs on a tiny one-track tape recorder while playing all the parts himself on guitar and drums in his small basement apartment. This skill would prove to be useful as Record sometimes filled in for the rest of the group when they were unavailable for recording sessions. Later, Record became a "one-man band" on his solo LPs. In 1976, Record left the Chi-Lites and signed a solo deal with Warner Bros. The first of two Warner Bros. albums, The Eugene Record (February 1977) spawned the 1977 number 24 R&B hit "Laying Beside You"; the next LP, Trying to Get to You," was released a year later.

Record kept busy writing songs and producing former Lost Generation member Lowell Simon aka Lowrell of "Mellow Mellow Right On" fame, among many others. Record occasionally joined the Chi-Lites on-stage and on record. Oakland, CA, rapper MC Hammer covered "Have You Seen Her" on his superstar-making second Capitol album Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em. "Have You Seen Her" quickly went gold and peaked at number four on both the R&B and the pop charts during the summer of 1990, no doubt fattening the coffers of songwriters Acklin and Record. In 1988, Record became a born-again Christian, making a 1992 appearance on TV's The 700 Club. After much study and spiritual growth, the veteran artist released his first all-gospel album, Let Him In, on his own label, Evergreen Records. Veteran promoter Gus Redmond was tapped by his childhood friend for promotional duties. In December of 2003, Record reunited with the Chi-Lites to film the PBS Special Superstars of Seventies Soul.

The following year the hip hop generation knocked on his door once again as "Are You My Woman" was used as part of the Beyonce hit "Crazy in Love." The song used enough of his tune to garner a writing credit and earned Record his first Grammy Award. After a long battle with cancer Eugene Record passed away on July 22, 2005 at the age of 64. At the time of his death he was busy with ministry work and planning a re-release of his 1998 gospel album Let Him In. ~ Ed Hogan, Rovi Hear more of Soulful Detroit: Isaac Hayes' Background Singers Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 5:31 am: �� ��� I believe the background singers were Pat Lewis, her sister Diane and Rose Williams, AKA Hot Buttered Soul. Here is some info I found on Pat Lewis' website: In 1969, Don Davis owner of United Sound Recording Studio (writer/producer for Stax Records) called �The Group� for yet another session which was for Isaac Hayes� album �Hot Buttered Soul.� Pat was hired to arrange and record background vocals.

When the album was released it was a hit. Isaac called �The Group� and asked if they wanted to travel with him. Pat gave Aretha Franklin her notice and �The Group� became �Hot Buttered Soul.� While working with Don Davis and Isaac Hayes, �Hot Buttered Soul� recorded background vocals for many of Stax artists. �Hot Buttered Soul� remained with Isaac Hayes from 1969 to 1982 as his opening act and his studio group. They went on world tours and appeared on TV shows nationally and abroad. Pat continued to arrange all background vocals but was not given credit until a later date. During Isaac�s off time, �Hot Buttered Soul� traveled with Aretha Franklin and Rick Dees �Disco Duck.� In 1972, �Hot Buttered Soul� moved to Memphis. In 1974 they added a fourth group member, Barbara McCoy, a former member of the �Chantels.� They then became �Hot Buttered Soul Unlimited.� Pat also worked for Shoe Productions where she did commercials for several products. Singing became scarce due to Isaac�s career difficulties, so Pat and Diane moved back to Detroit, but still worked with Isaac off and on.

Weldon A. Mc Dougal III (weldon) 6-Zenith Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 2:06 pm: �� ��� Another George Clinton connection - Rose Williams did a version of "Whatever Makes My Baby Feel Good' on a one-shot label called Funkadelic. If I remember rightly he used a copy of the single in the court hearings to prove that he'd originated the name Funkadelic. I hadn't made the connection to Hot Buttered Soul before reading this thread. Rose Williams' single's from '67, probably a good eighteen months before the first Funkadelic (the band)release. Texassoul, the group Barbara MCcoy was in before HBS is almost definitely The Charmels not The Chantels. The Charmels had a few singles on Volt. "The Chantels" was probably a typo somewhere along the line.

Davie Essential Albums: Hot Buttered Soul / Black Moses / Shaft - Concord Music Group Album Notes Hot Buttered Soul Four-song long-player ushered in the era of album-oriented soul with hits "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Walk On By." Reissue contains notes by Jim James of My Morning Jacket. Until Isaac Hayes released Hot Buttered Soul in 1969, soul music had been a singles-oriented genre. Best known as the partner of David Porter in writing such Stax hits as "Hold On! I'm Coming," "Soul Man" and "B-A-B-Y" among others, Hayes, along with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield gave the soul album a higher purpose, superseding the standard practice of assembling LPs around recent hits and filler. Even so, a four-song album whose two "singles" clocked in at 12:03 and 18:42 was unprecedented.

Stax Records' reissue of Hot Buttered Soul includes two bonus tracks (single edits of "Walk On By" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"), digital remastering, new rare photographs, and expanded liner notes by both music historian Bill Dahl and Hayes fan Jim James from the band My Morning Jacket. Hayes had recorded one previous album, Presenting Isaac Hayes in 1968, which failed to impact the charts the way his Porter-collaborated song compositions had for other Stax artists. Nonetheless, label president Al Bell green-lighted Hayes' encore long-player. Hayes went to cross-town Ardent Studios to lay down the tracks. "There was absolutely no attempt to be commercial," Marvell Thomas, the album's co-producer, told annotator Dahl. "It was just, ‘Let's do these songs. Let's do 'em like we like to do 'em.

Play whatever you want to play and have a good time doing it.' To the company, it wasn't, ‘We're going to make one of the all-time great albums and it's going to sell huge.' It was, ‘Okay, let Isaac do his thing.'" Opening with Hayes’ sexy, intimate delivery of Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” clocking in at 18 and a half minutes, the album also included an extended remake of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Walk On By,” given definition by the spacey lead guitar of Harold Beane. “The guitar solo was not something that was planned on front end,” recalled Thomas. “It was like, ‘Well why not?’ We just stretched out and let it go. When you get in the middle of it, you just kind of ride with it until it stops.” Which it did after 12 minutes. Beane joined Thomas on piano and Hayes himself on organ, backed by the surviving members of the Bar-Kays, a band ravaged by the airplane accident that also claimed Otis Redding. Guitarist Michael Toles and drummer Willie Hall filled out the band.

Interestingly, the overdubbing of strings, horns and backing vocals was done in Detroit instead Memphis, thanks largely to the influence of producer Don Davis, who introduced Al Bell to veteran Motown arranger Johnny Allen. Another Detroiter, Dale Warren — the nephew of Berry Gordy’s ex-wife — orchestrated “Walk On By,” with a violin section populated with members of the Detroit Symphony. The original album contained two other songs as well as the hits. “One Woman,” penned by Wilson Pickett accompanist Charlie Chalmers and his future wife, Sandra Rhodes, was more of a traditional Memphis soul ballad, and was recorded also by Al Green for his Green Is Blues album. The only number on Hot Buttered Soul bearing Hayes’ writing imprimatur (a co-write by Bell) sported one of the longest song titles ever conceived: “Hyperbolicsyllabiccsesquedalymistic.” According to Thomas, “(The title) means the propensity to make a whole big deal of using words to show off your vocabulary.” The reissue contains single mixes for both “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Walk On By,” extending the four-song album to six.

The new edition also contains a second set of liner notes by Jim James, lead vocalist, songwriter and producer for the Kentucky-based American rock band My Morning Jacket. Quoting James, “Everything is revealed when you open your mind to its secrets . . . [The album makes] your mind bleed . . . blurring the lines of what you thought you knew before was possible with music. It is one of those start to finish classics. And yes, damn near everything is here: Soul. Rock. Sweeping strings. Blasting horns. Full orchestral arrangements. Bare stripped down moments. Humor. Sadness. Funk . . . The recording is so God-damned 3D. It’s black. It’s white. It is universal. It is timeless. It is LOVE.” Black Moses Black Moses, the original LP cover of which unfolded in the shape of a cross three feet wide and four feet tall, "is a wondrously crafted, intense evocation of the vagaries of love gone bad," in the words of Stax historian Rob Bowman.

Hayes used songs popularized by such artists as the Jackson 5, the Carpenters, Toussaint McCall, Little Johnny Taylor, Jerry Butler, the Whispers, Ray Price, and Dionne Warwick, along with his own highly erotic "Good Love," to express the heartbreak he was feeling about the breakup of his own marriage. "Isaac's ability to take other people's material and make it so deeply personal," Bowman observed, "is nothing short of brilliant." Shaft Shaft is Isaac Hayes's crowning achievement. Besides being one of the most successful soundtrack albums of all time--spending over a year on Billboard's pop album chart, which it also topped--it opened the door for a number of other r&b artists, including Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and Norman Whitfield, to write for motion pictures. Besides such memorable tunes as "Ellie's Love Theme," "Soulville," the Wes Montgomery inspired "Cafe Regio's," and the nearly 20-minute funk opus "Do Your Thing," the double-disc album includes the classic "Theme from Shaft," itself a No. 1 pop hit.

The song earned Hayes an Oscar for "Best Song," while the album won him a Grammy for "Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture." Isaac Hayes' "Hot Buttered Soul" to be reissued | SoulTracks - Soul Music Biographies, News and Reviews Soul Music Biographies, News and Reviews Isaac Hayes' "Hot Buttered Soul" to be reissued … LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Until Isaac Hayes released Hot Buttered Soul in 1969, soul music had been a singles-oriented genre. Best known as the partner of David Porter in writing such Stax hits as "Hold On! I'm Coming," "Soul Man" and "B-A-B-Y" among others, Hayes, along with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield gave the soul album a higher purpose, superseding the standard practice of assembling LPs around recent hits and filler. Even so, a four-song album whose two "singles" clocked in at 12:03 and 18:42 was unprecedented.

Stax Records will reissue Hot Buttered Soul on June 23, 2009 with two bonus tracks (single edits of "Walk On By" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"), digital remastering, new rare photographs, and expanded liner notes by both music historian Bill Dahl and Hayes fan Jim James from the band My Morning Jacket. Hayes had recorded one previous album, Presenting Isaac Hayes in 1968, which failed to impact the charts the way his Porter-collaborated song compositions had for other Stax artists. Nonetheless, label president Al Bell green-lighted Hayes' encore long-player. Hayes went to cross-town Ardent Studios to lay down the tracks. "There was absolutely no attempt to be commercial," Marvell Thomas, the album's co-producer, told annotator Dahl. "It was just, â€˜Let's do these songs. Let's do 'em like we like to do 'em.

Play whatever you want to play and have a good time doing it.' To the company, it wasn't, â€˜We're going to make one of the all-time great albums and it's going to sell huge.' It was, â€˜Okay, let Isaac do his thing.'" Opening with Hayes' sexy, intimate delivery of Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," clocking in at 18 and a half minutes, the album also included an extended remake of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Walk On By," given definition by the spacey lead guitar of Harold Beane. "The guitar solo was not something that was planned on front end," recalled Thomas. "It was like, â€˜Well why not?' We just stretched out and let it go. When you get in the middle of it, you just kind of ride with it until it stops." Which it did after 12 minutes. Beane joined Thomas on piano and Hayes himself on organ, backed by the surviving members of the Bar-Kays, a band ravaged by the airplane accident that also claimed Otis Redding. Guitarist Michael Toles and drummer Willie Hall filled out the band.

Interestingly, the overdubbing of strings, horns and backing vocals was done in Detroit instead Memphis, thanks largely to the influence of producer Don Davis, who introduced Al Bell to veteran Motown arranger Johnny Allen. Another Detroiter, Dale Warren - the nephew of Berry Gordy's ex-wife - orchestrated "Walk On By," with a violin section populated with members of the Detroit Symphony. The original album contained two other songs as well as the hits. "One Woman," penned by Wilson Pickett accompanist Charlie Chalmers and his future wife, Sandra Rhodes, was more of a traditional Memphis soul ballad, and was recorded also by Al Green for his Green Is Blues album. The only number on Hot Buttered Soul bearing Hayes' writing imprimatur (a co-write by Bell) sported one of the longest song titles ever conceived: "Hyperbolicsyllabiccsesquedalymistic." According to Thomas, "(The title) means the propensity to make a whole big deal of using words to show off your vocabulary." The reissue contains single mixes for both "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Walk On By," extending the four-song album to six.

The new edition also contains a second set of liner notes by Jim James, lead vocalist, songwriter and producer for the Kentucky-based American rock band My Morning Jacket. Quoting James, "Everything is revealed when you open your mind to its secrets . . . [The album makes] your mind bleed . . . blurring the lines of what you thought you knew before was possible with music. It is one of those start to finish classics. And yes, damn near everything is here: Soul. Rock. Sweeping strings. Blasting horns. Full orchestral arrangements. Bare stripped down moments. Humor. Sadness. Funk . . . The recording is so God-damned 3D. It's black. It's white. It is universal. It is timeless. It is LOVE." Isaac Hayes on Apple Music To preview a song, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to buy and download music.

Biography Few figures exerted greater influence over the music of the 1960s and 1970s than Isaac Hayes; after laying the groundwork for the Memphis soul sound through his work with Stax-Volt Records, Hayes began a highly successful solo career which predated not only the disco movement but also the evolution of rap. Hayes was born on August 20, 1942, in Covington, TN; his parents died during his infancy, and he was raised by his grandparents. After making his public debut singing in church at the age of five, he taught himself piano, organ, and saxophone before moving to Memphis to perform on the city's club circuit in a series of short-lived groups like Sir Isaac and the Doo-Dads, the Teen Tones, and Sir Calvin and His Swinging Cats. In 1962, he began his recording career, cutting sides for a variety of local labels. Two years later, Hayes began playing sax with the Mar-Keys, which resulted in the beginning of his long association with Stax Records.

After playing on several sessions for Otis Redding, Hayes was tapped to play keyboards in the Stax house band, and eventually established a partnership with songwriter David Porter. Under the name the Soul Children, the Hayes-Porter duo composed some 200 songs, reeling off a string of hits for Stax luminaries like Sam & Dave (the brilliant "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby," "Soul Man," and "Hold on, I'm Comin'"), Carla Thomas ("B-A-B-Y"), and Johnnie Taylor ("I Got to Love Somebody's Baby," "I Had a Dream"). In 1967, Hayes issued his debut solo LP Presenting Isaac Hayes, a loose, jazz-flavored effort recorded in the early-morning hours following a raucous Stax party. With the release of 1969's landmark Hot Buttered Soul, he made his commercial breakthrough; the record's adventuresome structure (comprising four lengthy songs), ornate arrangements, and sensual grooves -- combined with the imposing figure cut by his shaven head, omnipresent sunglasses, and fondness for gold jewelry -- made Hayes one of the most distinctive figures in music.

After a pair of 1970 releases, The Isaac Hayes Movement and To Be Continued, he reached his commercial zenith in 1971 with the release of Shaft, the score from the Gordon Parks film of the same name. Not only did the album win Hayes an Academy Award for Best Score (the first African-American composer to garner such an honor), but the single "Theme from Shaft," a masterful blend of prime funk and pre-rap monologues, became a number one hit. After 1971's superb Black Moses and 1973's Joy, Hayes composed two 1974 soundtracks, Tough Guys and Truck Turner (in which he also starred). By 1975, relations with Stax had disintegrated following a battle over royalties, and soon he severed his ties with the label to form his own Hot Buttered Soul imprint. Although both 1975's Chocolate Chip and 1976's Groove-a-Thon went gold, his records of the period attracted considerably less attention than prior efforts; combined with poor management and business associations, Hayes had no choice but to file for bankruptcy in 1976.

After the 1977 double-LP A Man and a Woman, recorded with Dionne Warwick, Hayes began a comeback on the strength of the hit singles "Zeke the Freak," "Don't Let Go." and "Do You Wanna Make Love." Following the success of his 1979 collection of duets with Millie Jackson titled Royal Rappins, he issued a pair of solo records, 1980's And Once Again and 1981's Lifetime Thing before retiring from music for five years. After returning in 1986 with the LP U Turn and the Top Ten R&B hit "Ike's Rap," Hayes surfaced two years later with Love Attack before again dropping out of music to focus on acting. In 1995, fully enshrined as one of the forefathers of hip-hop and newly converted to Scientology, Hayes emerged with two concurrent releases, the vocal Branded and instrumental Raw and Refined. Under the official name Nene Katey Ocansey I, he also served as a member of the royal family of the African nation of Ghana while continuing simultaneous careers as an actor, composer, and humanitarian.

In 1997, Hayes provided the voice of what was slated to be a one-time character on the animated series South Park -- Jerome "Chef" McElroy, the main characters' favorite school cafeteria worker. Hayes was an instant hit, and Chef became a regular character on the show, lending advice and, oftentimes, breaking into songs that gently sent up Hayes' image as one of R&B's ultimate love men. South Park made Hayes more visible than ever and cemented his status as an icon with a whole new generation. He contributed the infamous "Chocolate Salty Balls" to the South Park tie-in album Chef Aid, and naturally appeared in the film South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. (He left the show only after an episode made fun of Scientology.) In 2000, Hayes revisited his biggest triumph of the past by appearing in the remake of Shaft starring Samuel L. Jackson. The following year, he supported Alicia Keys as a musician and arranger on her acclaimed debut, Songs in A Minor. Although he recorded little during the 2000s, he appeared in many films, including 2004's Hustle and Flow.

Hayes was in ill health on August 10, 2008, when he collapsed at his home in Memphis and was pronounced dead later that day of a stroke due to high blood pressure. ~ Jason Ankeny Top Albums

Question: Which group recorded the 1969 hit album "Hot Buttered Soul"?
Answer: Isaac Hayes